Will solution on tuition ever come to fruition?

Michigan State University raised undergraduate tuition 6.8 percent for this coming year.

Eastern Michigan raised its tuition by 7.7 percent. The University of Michigan went for a 5.6 percent hike.

Let me ask you something: Did you get a 6.8 percent raise last year? I didn't. Neither did most of you fellow Michigan taxpayers.

But, last week, we faithfully mailed in the $5,600 tuition payment for the first semester of our son's junior year at MSU.

Multiply that by two, figure in $500 rent for 10 months, add in some book expenses, and you have an annual expense of $17,000. Or about $70,000 to get the young man through college.

Now I know what those Spartans mean by "Go Green."

And, having covered higher education for eight years, I also know the arguments for why these yearly increases are necessary.

State funding is down, while energy costs such as utilities are rising. The duels for good faculty grow more intense, as does the need to upgrade facilities, again in the name of competition.

Also, universities are economically unique in that they don't generally subtract programs or features even as they add new ones.

So while the dazzling new Biological Science Research Building helps U-M reach into the future, its existing libraries and long-established academic departments must still be nurtured.

Schools also trumpet that they are increasing financial aid as they hike tuition. Yet those grants and scholarships generally bypass families where both parents work.

And those arguments can't obscure the other side of the story, which is the simple reality of what many families now experience in this escalating equation.

My wife paid about half of her expenses at U-M by working her way through college. My son's job at MSU will pay for his food and that's it.

I've heard similar stories. We took out a second mortgage on our home and set aside about $30,000 for his schooling, yet we'll still need student loans for that fourth year.

It's not like the late 1970s or early '80s, when U-M students paid about $1,000 annually in tuition. This year, instate undergraduates at U-M will pay more than $11,000.

Has your pay increased 10 times since those days? Didn't think so.

As an aside, U-M now charges the highest undergraduate tuition - more than $31,000 - to out-of-state residents of any public university in the country, according the most recent figures from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Despite such heavy costs, we all buy in to the idea that college leads to the best possible life and career. Like an economic badge of honor, we assume the burden of paying, even as it rises exponentially.

Is this what universities want? To graduate more and more students ensnared in debt?

There must be a solution. But it will require far tougher choices than most colleges or states appear willing to make these days.